Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses(Questions 506-519)

MR ELLIOT MORLEY MP, MR DANIEL INSTONE AND MR STEPHEN REEVES

WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2002

Chairman

  506. Minister, welcome to the Committee. We have, for the record, Elliot Morley, who is Parliamentary Under Secretary of the Commons for Fisheries, Water and Nature Protection. I am never quite sure if that is your permanent title or whether your title keeps changing somewhat in light of the function you are performing at any particular moment. Anyhow, for the purposes of this inquiry, that is what it is. Then we have Mr Daniel Instone, Head of Water Quality Division and Mr Stephen Reeves from the Water Quality Branch. One of the things we have discovered in this inquiry is that it is very all-embracing, and yet there is a large number of people who one would have thought would have been pretty well seized of it and beginning to wonder and worry about the implications of it who do not appear to know the Water Framework Directive even exists. The Local Government Association apparently have been wholly baffled by the concept of a Water Framework Directive. Very little evidence has come from people involved in diffuse pollution from urban sources as opposed to agricultural sources. How confident are you that everybody who ought to know that this is a massive and important piece of legislation that is now rolling inexorably forward actually has the faintest idea of its existence?

  (Mr Morley) I accept that this is a very complex Directive. The idea of it is, of course, to bring together the various directives that exist and to do it in a much more co-ordinated and joined-up way. I think that is a worthy objective. In terms of what you are saying, we have made a big effort through DEFRA and also the environment agencies to embrace and draw in people who have an interest in this Framework Directive. One of the points which might relate to the fact that some people say they are not quite clear about parts of it is that it is work in progress; it is developing, and of course, it will take place over a number of years. On the diffuse pollution, for example, we are just in the process now of going out to consultation on issues like that, but we have been engaged in seminars and conferences, we have our stakeholder group—and the LGA is involved in that—so people really ought to be aware that this Directive is in process, although it is fair to say, of course, that it is still developing.

  507. If we try and summarise the evidence we have received, nobody has said that this is a thoroughly bad idea. There have been two strains of thought which have come to us. One is to say in that last-minute conciliation process between Parliament and Council, quite a lot of stuff was put into the Directive which makes it quite difficult to live with—certain definitions which do not seem to make sense in either scientific or economic terms—and secondly, there are still an awful lot of unknowns in the Directive. Do you feel that we really do have the certainty of the necessary landmarks, or do you feel there are still areas on which you need clarification from Brussels as to quite what is meant by certain terms?
  (Mr Morley) I think we are relatively clear on the landmarks, if I can use that expression. It is true that there is a great deal more work to be done on certainties, and costs, for example, is one of those areas where there is a need to clarify the situation. But in terms of the route that the framework is taking and the key parts of it, I think they are fairly clear in relation to the definitions and how they are being developed.

  508. We will come to some of the questions in the course of the discussion. There is, of course, a timetable attached to this Directive, and clearly some of the people who gave evidence would quite like the Government to be a bit ahead of the game, other people were saying you have the possibility in certain circumstances to defer some of the implementation but the general feeling is that the Government's intention is to defer on the schedule neither before nor later than the schedule. Can you confirm that present intentions are to do it on the date, only the date and nothing but the date?
  (Mr Morley) Yes, we are working to the schedule as has been laid out in the Directive, and also in terms of the web programmes that we have made public.

Diana Organ

  509. The Chairman has already said this is complex, difficult, there are lots of unknowns, suggestions that the Government is not terribly prepared because a pilot river basin has not yet been chosen, we are not quite sure of the outcome. Why did the Government sign up to it? What are the benefits of doing this? Why are we going to do it?
  (Mr Morley) If I can deal with the first point first, I think there is a range of benefits with this in the sense that it is to everyone's benefit to have water of good ecological quality, good chemical quality, good standards. You are dealing with issues of drinking water, you are dealing with issues of water courses, inland waters, estuaries, river waters. These are desirable objectives for any government to pursue. As I said in my opening remarks, I also think that it is desirable, given the range of directives that there are in place—drinking water directives, bathing water directives—to bring them together within one framework it is also desirable in terms of having effective implementation and also the way that people understand them and how they operate. I might just say on the river basin pilot studies, I can say today, Chairman, that the Environment Agency are going to go ahead with the Ribble basin catchment study, and that will be in its broadest sense. We also know that there are groups in the Mersey basin who are very keen to be involved in the development of such pilots, and the Agency intends to embrace those as well. I thought you might like to know that.

  Chairman: Mr Jack is at the bottom end of the Ribble and I am at the top end of the Ribble, so our joy is uncontained!

Diana Organ

  510. If you say there are benefits from the quality of water and the quality of the environment, does that mean that the public does not have good quality drinking water and water bodies in the UK are pretty filthy and therefore there are problems with their bio-diversity and ecology?
  (Mr Morley) Absolutely not. In fact, I am very glad to say that the standard of our rivers has consistently increased in recent years in terms of quality standard, as indeed has the quality of drinking water in terms of its safety standards. We have made enormous progress in this country in relation to improving water quality in its broadest sense, but I think that there is a very sound argument for having a Framework Directive of this kind because of the complexity and importance of the whole issue of water policy. We did lay that out, of course, in our strategy, Directing the Flow, which I know that you have seen, and that makes very clear the priorities of future water policy, how we are trying to bring those together, and how the government strategy will fit within the framework approach as well. I think there is a great deal of logic in this approach, though I do not dispute there is also a great deal of work to be done in terms of dealing with some of the issues and clarifying some of the points and pulling together the different strands of it.

  511. Having tried to tease from you why the Government has chosen to sign up to this and the benefits that we might have as a result of it, how different are we going to be by 2012 from how we are now? What are the real reasons why Government has gone down this track?
  (Mr Morley) Again, there is a number of reasons, but I particularly like the public participation in the basin approaches. I think that is very important and desirable. I also think there are some quite complex issues that we need to address. Diffuse pollution is one of them. Part of that is the fact that there is still a lot of work to be done. For example, a third of our rivers are still below good quality, even despite the fact that we have made such advances in recent years. So I would not want to be complacent about the work that we have to do and the fact that there are still a lot of potential areas of pollution, there are still a lot of areas we need to control, there are issues of water resource management and issues of new building and issues of run-off from roads, from agriculture, and there are issues about the many different groups who have an interest in high water quality: recreational groups, environmental groups, and the water companies, of course. All these are embraced within the framework and I think that brings a range of benefits.

Mrs Shephard

  512. You have rightly described the implications of the Directive as increasing complexity. What has interested all of us on the Committee as we have worked our way through the groups involved is the question of accountability. This does not seem to be any clearer as we proceed through our questioning. For example, what legal status will river basin management plans have in relation to land use planning? Who will be accountable for those? How will that accountability cross-reference to elected local authority members who are responsible for land use planning? How will it work?
  (Mr Morley) The Directive will certainly have a legal basis, and it will also fit in with land use planning.

  513. No. It cannot fit in if it overrides it.
  (Mr Morley) It does not exactly override it. It will fit in in the sense that the Framework Directive will have to be included in planning policy guidance which will be issued by the ODPM, both in terms of the PPG approach and also in the regional guidance which is given to local authorities which of course influences their structure plans. It has to be taken account of in relation to land use planning. In that sense, it will be integrated.

  514. Can I just clarify my question yet again? If there should be a clash between the legal status of a river basin management plan and a decision of a planning committee, who wins?
  (Mr Morley) The planning committee will have to take into account the legal status of the framework because in relation to consents, run-offs, those kinds of developments, there will have to be applications for consents, and any kind of issue which affects water—as it is now; there is not a huge difference in this. They will have to be part of any planning process and they will have to go through that part of the process in relation to ensuring that the planning application does meet the requirements of the Directive.

Chairman

  515. Does that mean the Government would exercise its powers of call-in in order to ensure conformity?
  (Mr Morley) My assumption on that would be that, just like any planning application now, it does have to go through the process, and part of the process will be complying with aspects of the Water Framework Directive. If it is a major planning application, or if there were dispute that it did not meet aspects of the regulations, which it would be expected to in the normal course of its process, then yes, it could be called in. That would be my understanding.

Mrs Shephard

  516. If there were therefore to be an appeal on the part of those making a planning application, to which body would they appeal?
  (Mr Morley) The normal appeal process would be through the existing structures of the ODPM. There would be no change on that.

  517. What you are really saying then is that the accountability rests where it is.
  (Mr Morley) The structures in relation to planning are unchanged in terms of the chain of accountability, but what I want to emphasise is that there are aspects of the Directive which, if there is an impact on any kind of land use planning, particularly discharge consents, run-off, perhaps water abstraction, will have to be taken into account, as indeed they are now; they do have to comply with the procedures for that.

  518. Can I ask you how you see the structure? You must have in your mind's eye a picture of the structure—a flow chart, if you like—that will, first of all, be designed to avoid duplication of plans involving water? Perhaps you could tell us how many bodies you think will then be involved, for example, and where you have to go for which permissions. Then I would like you to tell us about the flow chart for co-ordinating in government departments.
  (Mr Morley) On the first one, the lead agency for this Directive will be the Environment Agency. That will be very clear to all concerned. The Environment Agency, of course, already has its procedures in relation to consultation and its interface with the public and the way that it operates. I do not see any problems in terms of confusion or duplication. The Environment Agency also has structures such as its regional advisory groups, which may have to be looked at in the context of river basin management, for example, and whether there can be a strengthening in relation to involvement and consultation. That is part of the process that we are going through in the consultation that we are having on the Directive. There will also have to be co-ordination between government departments. We have set up a group which is co-ordinating us at the present time in relation to the implementation. Those procedures are in place.

  519. The Environment Agency is not democratically accountable, is it? Who is accountable for it?
  (Mr Morley) The Environment Agency is democratically accountable through parliament, through DEFRA. The Environment Agency is part of the DEFRA family, and it is an arm of government, and therefore is democratically accountable through parliament in the same way that any function of government is.


 
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